The Diablo III Website explains that to combat fraud, as of the new version, digitally purchased editions of Diablo III will be quarantined as the Starter Edition for up to 72 hours (thanks GameSpot). Here's word:

As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less). Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

• Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
• Level 13 cap
• Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
• No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
• Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

briktal wrote on Jun 22, 2012, 09:23:They should put in some restrictions that prevent all these spam/bot accounts paid for with bad/stolen credit cards from spamming or affecting the economy.

THEY created this situation...

They have made an open market for virtual items and then expect the people that profit off just that not to attack it?? Are they fucking stupid?

Though actually they have said here that the level 13/skeleton king restrictions on "unintended" and they hope to remove them later. Which I'm assuming to mean they wanted to push out the other restrictions but didn't have enough time to implement just the set of restrictions they want so they went with the Starter Edition.

Bullshit. There was no way this patch could land with that restriction included and no one notice. Unintended my ass, it was perfectly intended as a stop gap because they can't figure out why their perfect online solution was fucked, and now the backlash is so bad they are crapping themselves and will say anything to try and get out of accepting blame.

It saddens me that some people are still so fucking obtuse that they buy in to these blatant lies...

It was almost certainply, in that scenario, a bad idea to put it out there with the level/progression restriction. People might understand if it takes a day or two to get access to chat and the AH on a new purchase, but not restricting it to the Skeleton King. I mean, realistically, you'll hit that wall pretty quick. You can go without chat forever and the AH for a while without missing much.

THEN MAKE A SINGLE PLAYER OFFLINE COMPONENT AND LET PEOPLE PLAY THAT FOR FUCKS SAKE...

There is no excuse for this.

I don't give a fuck about their problems. They have designed a honeypot for farmers to attack in their droves and then punish the paying customers (you know, the ones who are legitimately trying to play the piece of shit) for their lack of foresight.

People wonder why companies keep doing this stupid shit.. It's because sycophants keep letting them get away with it while throwing money at them. It's irrational, it's paying to be raped up the ass and claiming to enjoy it.